1. Technical Field
This invention relates to the field of speech creation or synthesis, and more particularly to a method and system for dynamic speech creation for messages of varying lexical intensity.
2. Description of the Related Art
Interactive voice response (IVR)-based speech portals or systems that provide informational messages to callers based on user selection/navigational commands tend to be monotonous and characteristically machine-like. The monotonous machine-like voice is due to the standard interface design approach of providing “canned” text messages synthesized by a text to speech (TTS) engine or prerecorded audio segments that constitute the normalized appropriate response to the callers′ inquiries. This is very dissimilar to “human-to-human” based dialog, where, based on the magnitude of the difference from the norm of the situation being discussed, the response is altered by changing the parts of speech (verbs and adverbs) to create the necessary effect that the individual wants to represent. No existing IVR system dynamically alters a message to be presented based on the context or situation being discussed in order to more closely replicate “human-to-human” based dialog.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,334,103 by Kevin Surace et al. discusses a system that changes behavior (using different “personalities”) based on user responses, user experience and context provided by the user. Prompts are selected randomly or based on user responses and context as opposed to changes based on the context of the information to be presented. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,658,388 by Jan Kleindienst et al., the user can select (or create) a personality through configuration. Each personality has multiple attributes such as happiness, frustration, gender, etc. Again, the particular attributes are selectable by the user. In this regard, each person who calls the system as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,658,388 will experience a different behavior based on the personality attributes the user has configured in his/her preferences. Again, the language or sentence structure will not change dynamically based on the context of the information to be presented. Rather, a given person will always interact with the same personality, unless the configuration is changed by him/her. Although the prompts are tailored to suit user preferences, a user of a conventional system would still fail to hear a unique dynamic message that most accurately describes a particular event.